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Original Paper
Background: Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions are the most common cause of severe chronic pain and disability worldwide. Despite the impact of these conditions, disparity exists in accessing high quality basic care. As a result, effective treatments do not always reach people who need services. The situation is further hampered by the current models of care that target resources to a limited area of health services (eg, joint replacement surgery), rather than the entire continuum of MSK health, which includes services provided by primary care physicians and health professionals. The use of digital media offers promising solutions to improve access to services. However, our knowledge in this field is limited. To advance the use of digital media in improving MSK care, we held a research planning meeting entitled "PEOPLE: Partnership to Enable Optimal Primary Health Care by Leveraging Digital Media in Musculoskeletal Health". This paper reports the discussion during the meeting.
Objective: The objective of this study was to: (1) identify research priorities relevant to using digital media in primary health care for enhancing MSK health, and (2) develop research collaboration among researchers, clinicians, and patient/consumer communities.
Methods: The PEOPLE meeting included 26 participants from health research, computer science/digital media, clinical communities, and patient/consumer groups. Based on consultations with each participant prior to the meeting, we chose to focus on 3 topics: (1) gaps and issues in primary health care for MSK health, (2) current application of digital media in health care, and (3) challenges to using digital media to improve MSK health in underserviced populations.
Results: The 2-day discussion led to emergence of 1 overarching question and 4 research priorities. A main research priority was to understand the characteristics of those who are not able to access preventive measures and treatment for early MSK diseases. Participants indicated that this information is necessary for tailoring digital media interventions. Other priorities included: (1) studying barriers and ethical issues associated with the use of digital media to optimize MSK health and self-management, (2) improving the design of digital media tools for providing "just-in-time" health information to patients and health professionals, and (3) advancing knowledge on the effectiveness of new and existing digital media interventions.
Conclusions: We anticipate that the results of this meeting will be a catalyst for future research projects and new cross-sector research partnerships. Our next step will be to seek feedback on the research priorities from our collaborators and other potential partners in primary health care.
Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions are the most common cause of severe chronic pain and disability worldwide [
- ]. Approximately 33% of adults in the United States reported having chronic joint symptoms and arthritis [ ]. In Canada, arthritis alone affects 4.4 million people (age ≥ 15 years) and is projected to affect 7 million in 20 years [ ]. Effective treatments are available. For example, strong evidence indicates that lifestyle interventions such as exercise [ - ], weight management [ - ], and education [ , ] can reduce pain, improve quality of life [ , , ], and have potential to reduce the progression of joint damage in those with osteoarthritis [ ]. Also, there is ample evidence supporting the early and consistent use of disease modifying medications for treating inflammatory arthritis [ - ]. However, despite the evidence, most people in Canada do not receive the basic care in a timely manner to maintain MSK health [ - ] or cannot access treatment at all [ - ]. The situation is further hampered by our current models of care that invest in a limited aspect of services provided by specialists (eg, triaging for early diagnosis of inflammatory arthritis or provision of joint replacement surgery), rather than the entire continuum of MSK health [ ], which includes treatments and health promotion strategies provided by a variety of primary care health professionals [ ].The use of digital media offers promising solutions to improve access to services. Digital media, which are electronic media that operate on digital codes, offer a broad range of applications, such as social networking tools, online games, animation, interactive websites, and mobile applications. They provide tremendous flexibility for delivering health-related information at a time and place that is chosen by the individual. In the past, digital media referred to "new media" for specific applications. Today, digital media is everywhere. In contrast, our knowledge on their use in health promotion, treatment, and self-management is still in its infancy. To advance the use of digital media in improving MSK care, we held a research planning meeting on October 13-14, 2011 in Vancouver, Canada, entitled "PEOPLE: Partnership to Enable Optimal Primary Health Care by Leveraging Digital Media in Musculoskeletal Health". The purpose of this paper was to report the research priorities generated from this meeting.
Pre-meeting Consultation
The PEOPLE meeting was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)-funded Model of Care in Arthritis Team (CIHR Funding Reference Number: EMT-92253) [
]. Twenty-six invitees, representing health and computer science disciplines, clinical communities, and patients/consumers groups participated at this meeting. All participants were considered equal contributors in discussions and the development of research priorities. Before the meeting, a series of individual consultations were held by the co-chairs (Linda Li and Aileen Davis) to learn about participants' expectations of the meeting, and their opinions regarding the use of digital media in primary health care. Comments from each participant were reviewed to develop new probing questions for subsequent consultations.Overall, participants agreed that the meeting should focus on three areas: (1) gaps and issues in primary care for maintaining/improving MSK health, (2) successes and pitfalls of current applications of digital media in health care, and (3) challenges to using digital media for improving primary health care in underserviced populations.
PEOPLE Meeting
The PEOPLE meeting consisted of 3 sessions; each included short, thought-provoking presentations and facilitated discussions (
). The meeting ended with a group brainstorming on research priorities. At the start, participants agreed to adopt Health Canada's definitions of "primary care" and "primary health care". Primary care was defined as the point of first contact with the health care system. It includes "the diagnosis, treatment, and management of health problems with services delivered predominantly by physicians, but increasingly by other professionals with direct patient access" [ ].Health Canada defined primary health care as "an approach to providing health care that involves health professionals working together and delivering care within the context of the broader determinants of health of individuals and communities". As such, primary health care encompasses a range of services, "including illness prevention, health promotion, diagnosis, and management of health concerns. It encourages the use of the health professional(s) from the most appropriate health discipline(s) to maximize the potential of health resources" [
].Session 1: Gaps and Issues in Primary Health Care for Musculoskeletal Health
The session began with a presentation on the current practice, challenges, and opportunities in MSK care (by Dr. Thea Vliet Vlieland). This talk highlighted recent research that used Web-based interventions to improve arthritis care in The Netherlands. This was followed by Ms. Simone Hughes, who shared her past experience as a person with arthritis living in a rural community, and Ms. Robin Roots, who presented her research on rural and remote rehabilitation practice. The final presentation discussed the use of digital media from a physician's perspective (by Dr. Preston Wiley). Participants were asked to reflect on 2 questions after each presentation: 1) What are the issues in primary health care that can/should be addressed by research? 2) How may digital media be applied to improve primary health care?
An issue raised during the discussion was the difficulties experienced by individuals, their families, and health professionals in accessing high quality information about the services required or available to manage MSK health. It was suggested that in areas where there were physician shortages, nurse practitioners and advanced practice rehabilitation professionals might help to provide care and assist patients to access services. Participants also pointed out that although well-designed digital media tools could help to bridge the information gap, underserviced populations might be the least likely to know about, and have access to, computers and/or mobile devices for information. To quote one participant, "If you build it, they may not come." Therefore, a survey on how people who are currently underserviced access information would be useful.
The group also discussed challenges posed by existing computerized tools for accessing health information (ie, design issues). Participants with a computer science/design background noted that most tools in the health sector were not user friendly, and some were developed without target audiences in mind. They believed that the future digital media tools should be designed to provide customized information, taking into account users' needs and literacy levels. The group also raised concerns about accessing information using digital media portals, particularly with the growing "broadband divide" between those living in the city and those living in areas with unreliable broadband Internet access. This issue needs to be taken into consideration when designing tools to support primary health care and patient self-management in rural and remote areas.
Session 2: Current Application of Digital Media in Health Care
This session began with an overview on research that uses virtual reality, robotics, and social networking programs to manage chronic pain and anxiety disorders (by Drs. Diane Gromala and Chris Shaw). Participants also heard about the research on communication technology and health (Dr. Sherida Ryan). Dr. Ryan raised an important issue of the poor "cyber literacy" of the general population, which included not knowing how to determine the credibility of a website or how to protect one's personal information and identity on the Internet. Finally, Dr. Scott Lear shared his research on telehealth in chronic disease self-management in Northern British Columbia. Dr. Scott stressed the importance of attending to the technical issues and creating a navigation pathway for the online intervention at the start of a project.
After each presentation, participants were asked to reflect on the following question: How might digital media address issues identified in primary health care? Participants gave a few examples to illustrate how digital media could be used, including: (1) health surveillance (eg, provide monitoring and feedback to patients' health status and lifestyle behaviors, such as participation in physical activity), (2) patient-health professional communication (eg, emails, Skype), (3) record keeping and health professional communication (eg, electronic medical record), (4) access knowledge (eg, patient education websites), and (5) continuing professional development (eg, e-communities of practice). In general, participants felt that further effort would be required to assist the public in judging the credibility of online health information. During the discussion about health surveillance, the concern of "self-management overload" and "monitor burden" was voiced by several patients/consumers. There was a tension between the need for monitoring and the focus on symptoms/illness. The latter might reinforce the sickness role and could have a detrimental effect on the individual.
It was suggested that future research could explore how to use digital media tools to provide "staged information" to enhance MSK health (ie, just enough information relevant to the specific stage of the disease, rather than "too much too early"). Also suggested was the need to study the effectiveness of digital media tools for providing personalized monitoring and feedback for patients with MSK disease.
Session 3: Roles and Challenges of Using Digital Media for Improving Primary Health Care in Underserviced Populations
This session began with presentations from 3 different viewpoints on using digital media in the health sector. First, a health educator/a person living with arthritis shared her experience as a member of a primary health care team for homeless people and her view on using online and mobile tools for providing care (Ms. Louise Crane). Next, a computer scientist, Ms. Meehae Song, presented an overview of new digital media technologies for the health sector, especially for marginalized populations (eg, people living in poverty, sex workers). Examples included virtual reality training for chronic pain management, telemedicine, eHealth monitoring bracelets, mobile devices, and smartphone add-ons. Designers of these tools paid attention to optimizing user friendliness while minimizing costs. Finally, a medical sociologist discussed the ethical issues associated with access to technology for self-management (Dr. Anne Townsend). Central to Dr. Townsend's talk was the tension between educating people to self-manage and supporting self-management. The former was based on a health professionals' assumption that individuals lack the knowledge and skills to self-manage, and hence, need to be taught; while the latter took a patient's perspective of needing access to resources and support to manage one's health. Dr. Townsend discussed the potential ethical dilemma these different views might have on the design and implementation of digital media tools in primary health care.
Participants were asked to reflect on the following questions after the presentations: (1) What are the additional issues that need to be addressed to improve primary health care in the underserviced population? (2) What are the potential applications of digital media to improve primary health care in underserviced populations? (3) What ethical issues, which underline the use of digital media for primary health care in underserviced populations, need to be factored into future research?
A variety of topics were discussed in this session. The group began by cautioning against a narrow definition of underserviced population (eg, only focusing on those living in rural/remote areas). People who are underserviced tended to have similar characteristics. Although some demographic characteristics were well known (eg, geography, income, and education), others such as sex/gender role, race, and access to social capital and network had not been fully explored. A better understanding of these characteristics would help further advance research in digital media and primary health care. It was agreed upon that community-based research principles should be followed when working with underserviced populations. Further, future research should take into account the lived experienced of the target populations.
Participants also discussed the current model of self-management, which was a "deficit model" [
]. This model implied that people became ill because they did something wrong, and so interventions should focus on helping them to "do the right thing". The assumption was that health professionals should help people "evolve" from a passive recipient of care to an active participant (ie, educating people how to self-manage). Yet in reality, people with chronic disease find ways to manage their conditions every day [ ], and so interventions should be developed to support self-management instead. Participants felt that this was where digital media might play a role. Finally, to fully leverage the potential of new technologies, the group emphasized collaborations between the health and digital media sectors in future research.Discussion
During the brainstorming for research priorities, an overarching question emerged: In the pursuit to optimize MSK health, do digital media offer viable solutions to reach those who are hard to reach? The PEOPLE meeting participants recognized that a basic challenge to providing primary health care for MSK health was the lack of access to "just-in-time" knowledge. This refers to concise knowledge that is available when and where it is needed by an individual making a treatment, clinical or policy decision, or for maintaining good health. Several research priorities were identified, including:
- Understanding the characteristics of individuals who are underserviced.
- Studying barriers and ethical issues associated with the use of digital media tools by underserviced populations to optimize MSK health and support self-management.
- Identifying design issues for developing new tools/modifying existing technologies to provide "just-in-time" information for users, with attention paid to addressing health literacy and cyber literacy.
- Increasing knowledge on the effectiveness of new and existing digital media interventions, as well as different implementation strategies.
In conclusion, the PEOPLE meeting has identified research priorities for improving primary health care in chronic MSK conditions through digital media, with the input of a variety of stakeholders. Given that the late adopters have accounted for most of the new Internet users since the late 2000s [
], digital media is not only the future, but is already present. The collaboration between health and digital media sectors is crucial to modernize primary health care for the 21st century. We anticipate that the findings from this meeting will be a catalyst for future projects and new cross-sector research partnerships, and welcome feedback on this report.Acknowledgments
The PEOPLE Meeting organizing committee is grateful for the financial support provided by the CIHR Model of Care in Arthritis Team. The committee also thank the PEOPLE Meeting participants: the meeting facilitator (Alison Hoens, PT, MSc, Physical Therapy Knowledge Broker), patients/consumers (Ms. Simone Hughes, Ms. Louise Crane, and Mr. John Coderre), health professionals (Garey Mazowita, MD, James Pencharz, MSc, MD, Michelle Acorn, NP, APN, Preston Wiley, MD, Raja Rampersaud, MD, Robin Roots, BSc (PT), MSc), health researchers (Anne F Townsend, PhD, Catherine L Backman, OT, PhD, Diane Lacaille, MD, MHSc, Scott A Lear, PhD, Sherida Ryan, PhD, OT, Sydney Lineker, PT, PhD, Thea Vliet Vlieland, MD, PhD), and computer scientists (Chris Shaw, PhD, Diane Gromala, PhD, Meehae Song, PhD candidate).
Conflicts of Interest
None declared.
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CIHR: Canadian Institutes of Health Research |
MSK: musculoskeletal |
PEOPLE: Partnership to Enable Optimal Primary Health Care by Leveraging Digital Media in Musculoskeletal Health |
Edited by G Eysenbach; submitted 13.07.12; peer-reviewed by P Croft, P Franklin, T Rosenzweig; comments to author 01.09.12; revised version received 29.01.13; accepted 09.02.13; published 08.03.13
Copyright©Linda C Li, Cheryl Cott, C Allyson Jones, Elizabeth M Badley, Aileen M Davis, PEOPLE Meeting Participants. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (http://www.researchprotocols.org), 08.03.2013.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Research Protocols, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.researchprotocols.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.


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No, there are no dogs at my house, and we're not talking about "belly rolls"!
I did grab this jelly roll from my local quilt shop though, hehe, and am very excited about making some quilted boy and girl changing pads for my little boy Jack.
So I'm having tons of fun just opening the fabric and playing!
These are my favorite prints right now…
I'm lovin the sketchy hand drawn puppies!
I'm also pretty excited about the girl prints! There are some great retro style fabrics to choose from with great pink and purple color schemes 🙂
Here's a pic of my progress so far…
Wish me luck!

subset: commoncrawl


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Hard at work: By Hyun Gu Lee & Murad Akhter
We were motivated by the desire to render the intricate and fine detail of human skin texture and multi-layered reflection and sub-surface scattering properties. Towards this end we implemented a paper on "Real-time, Photo-realistic, Physically Based Rendering of Fine Scale Human Skin Structure" by A. Haro et al, and "A Rapid Hierarchical Rendering Technique for Translucent Materials" by Henrik Wann Jensen
Skin Texture & Fine Detail (Murad Akhter)
Hand Modeling, Rigging and Posing
In order to build a realistic hand model we began work with a full body human model from Zygote. I edited the mesh to extract a hand model in Maya, added details like vascular ridges, rigged the model by using Maya's skeleton tool, bound the skin to the rig, and then posed the model so that it would match the image we were trying to reproduce. I then exported this model as an OBJ file and used Mark Colbert's PBRT wavefront shape plug-in to directly read this model for rendering.
Acquiring Skin Moulds
Following the approach of A.Haro et, all, I ordered SILFLO, a Silicone based moulding agent from CuDerm and took moulds from different regions of the hand. I tried to make sure I could capture the higher frequency details around finger joints and knuckles and skin pores around different regions of the skin as well as the lower and upper surface of the palm. Here are images of some of the samples I took.
Generating Normal Maps
I implemented shape from shading to compute normal maps from the skin moulds I had collected. The setup for this consisted of a fixed camera position, sample mould and a halogen lamp whose position I varied as I took pictures to generate 8 simultaneous equations as suggested by A.Haro. I used polaroid filters on the lamp and camera properly rotated prependicular with respect to each other in order to remove specular reflections and assumed pure Lambertian reflection. With 8 equations and images in hand I used a simple least squares method to calculate the normals using Matlab.
Texture Synthesis
I assumed that the normals across the hand surface varied stochastically and so grew the normal maps I had acquired via shape from shading above using texture synthesis. A few regions were selected to grow the normals across and the synthesized textures were stiched together in Photoshop. The texture synthesis algorithm I implemented was based on the extension to Li-Yi Wei & Marc Levoy's "Fast Texture Synthesis using TSVQ" paper by Ashikhmin ("Synthesizing Natural Textures) which works well for natural textures, only requires small neighbourhoods, & doesn't require TSVQ or multi-resolution acceleration. Here are some sample textures synthesized with this code.
And here is the final normal map that was generated from skin moulds, shape from shading, texture synthesis and texture stiching:
Bump mapping and bells and whistles
PBRT uses displacement maps for bump-mapping. I therefore, extended the code base so it could handle normal maps as well. Finally, I also added models and textures for pen, paper and a wooden desk as well as added a depth of focus effect to make a prettier image.
Subsurface Scattering (Hyun Gu Lee)
I tried to implement subsurface scattering using the "A Rapid Hierarchical Rendering Technique for Translucent Materials" by Henrik Wann Jensen and Juan Buhler. Unfortunately, I could not get it to work correctly. This is how I tried to implement it. First, to sample the points on the mesh, I tried using the point repulsion method described in the "Generating Textures on Arbitrary Surfaces Using Reaction-Diffusion" and "Re-Tiling Polygonal Surfaces" by Greg Turk. This method proved to be hard to implement, difficult to debug, and time consuming. After talking with some classmates who were using the same paper, I found that you can just use the vertices of the polygon mesh weighted by the area. The second part of the algorithm, evaluating the diffusion approximation, was done by using a modified octree class. The values of the parameters for skin were taken from "Reflection from Layered Surfaces due to Subsurface Scattering" by Pat Hanrahan and Wolfgang Krueger. In retrospect, I probably should have consulted others and asked for more help. I also shouldn't have tried to design it in the most general way possible, but concentrate on making it work on one specific case at a time.
- "Real-time, Photo-realistic, Physically Based Rendering of Fine Scale Human Skin Structure",
A. Haro, B. Guenter, and I. Essa, Proceedings 12th Eurographics Workshop on Rendering, London, England, June 2001.
Hanrahan, P., and Krueger, W. 1993. Reflection from layered surfaces due to subsurface scattering. In Proceedings of the ACM Siggraph 1999, ACM Press / Addision-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, Computer Graphics Proeedings, 164-174.
Pharr, M., and Hanrahan, P. 2000. Monte carlo evaluation of non-linear scattering equations for subsurface reflection.
Original Proposal
Our original project proposal can be found here. We did not have time to add hair as we had originally intended.


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Leisure Services programs are led by the Recreation Division. Programming is developed for people of all ages, including preschool, youth and teens, adults and seniors. Specific areas include Aquatics, Athletics, the Canton Sports Center, the B.L.O.C.K. Teen Center, the Senior Adults Program, Youth Development (Teens), Health and Wellness, and Special Events.
The activities and programs provide opportunities for families and friends to build relationships, create a sense of belonging in the community, and positively impact the local economy.
You're Never Too Young or Old to Learn Something New!
From Music with Joy for toddlers to Chinese Cooking for adults and everything in between, Canton Leisure Services is sure to have a class or camp that is right up your alley!
We offer classes that help develop fine motor, language and self-help skills. For Preschoolers there are music, sports, swim and art classes. We also have classes that are designed specifically for two, three and four year-olds.
Youth & Teen
Youth and Teen programs include babysitting, guitar, karate, science, cooking and even Lego classes.
Adult, Boomers, & Seniors
Are you interested in learning a new skill? Then register for an art, cooking, fitness or guitar class.
Health & Wellness
Our health and wellness classes cover all bases by offering fitness classes, wellness classes, personal training services, and nutrition services. We have something for all ages, abilities, and fitness levels.
Discover Brochure: all Canton Leisure Services programs, classes, events and services are included in the bi-annual Discover program brochure. Offerings are available for all ages and interests.
Registration: program registration is available online and at the Summit on the Park front desk.
Participant Inclusion and Accommodations (PDF): Canton Leisure Services strives to ensure that all facilities and programs meet ADA requirements and are inclusive of all individuals regardless of ability. If you would like to request accommodations, please complete the Inclusion and Accommodation Form or call 734/394-5460.
Jonathan LaFever
Community Development Director
Summit On the Park
Physical Address
46000 Summit Parkway
Canton, MI 48188
Phone: 734/394-5460


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Fellow Status Obtained
BERLIN – Colleen Wareing, vice president of patient care services at Atlantic General Hospital, recently became a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), the nation's leading professional society for healthcare leaders.
Fellow status represents achievement of the highest standard of professional development. In fact, only 5,400 healthcare executives hold this distinction. To obtain Fellow status, candidates must fulfill multiple requirements, including passing a comprehensive examination, meeting academic and experiential criteria, earning continuing education credits and demonstrating professional and community involvement.
Wareing, who has more than 20 years of healthcare management experience, holds a bachelor of science in nursing from University of Delaware and a master of science from Columbia Pacific. She is also certified through the American Nursing Credentialing Center in Nursing Administration – Advanced.
Wareing is privileged to use the FACHE credential, which signifies board certification in healthcare management and ACHE Fellow status.
"Certification validates experience and knowledge in specific areas of nursing, and throughout my career I have advocated for nurses to achieve certification professionally," said Wareing. "Having personally maintained specialty certification in nursing for more than 20 years, achieving Fellow in ACHE was a personal goal to demonstrate achievement in healthcare overall."
Top Producers Announced
BERLIN — Re/Max Premier Properties recently announced top producer in volume for the month of November was Nick Bobenko
Company agents in the top 100 for the Coastal Association of Realtors included Holly Campbell, Bobenko, Jim White, Marlene Ott, Elaine Davidson, Debbie Bennington, Cindy Purcell, Mary Ann O'Malley, Jerry Richards, Bernie Flax, Pam Price, Bill Hunt and Sandy Galloway. Noticeable mention goes to Edie Brennan for volume including her sales from previous brokerage.
New Program Unveiled
BERLIN – Apple Discount Drugs, a locally owned Health Mart pharmacy, has announced a new program called Apple Makes Cents for Education. The program is designed to make it easy for people to give back to their local schools.
By simply shopping at the Berlin Apple location and the Snow Hill Pharmacy and dropping the receipts from each purchase into a labeled box, Apple will donate a portion of the total sales to the customer's designated Worcester County school.
"Our students and schools are the future of our local community and economy," said Apple Discount Drugs President Jeff Sherr. "We greatly appreciate all of the customers who believe in supporting locally owned businesses like Apple, and we want to thank them for their commitment to our business and the local economy by giving back to our local schools."
For every one-dollar spent at a local business, 45 cents goes to the local community. It is an investment in the local economy and a show of support for the promotion of local jobs, according to Sherr.
CPA Exam Passed
OCEAN CITY — Gregory & Associates, LLC, a certified public accounting firm in Ocean City, has announced Emilee Snader has passed the CPA exam.
Snader graduated from Villa Julie College, Summa Cum Laude, obtaining her BS in accounting. She received her Masters of Science in Forensic Studies: Accounting from Stevenson University in 2011.
Snader has been a staff accountant at Gregory & Associates since her graduation in 2009.
Foundation Changes
SALISBURY — The Peninsula Regional Medical Center Foundation recently welcomed Phyllis A. Vinyard and Todd Burbage as new members of its Board of Directors.
Vinyard, a well-respected advocate for children with disabilities, is a graduate of Madison College and a former middle school instructor in history and geography. She has also had a career in retail. She was married to Henry Vinyard for 32 years before his passing in March of 2011.
Burbage is a builder, developer and owner of commercial and residential projects in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and Washington, DC. He is a graduate of Salisbury University with a degree in business marketing. Burbage currently also serves on the Board of Directors for the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore, the Maryland Coastal Bays Program and the Calvin B. Taylor Bank.
The foundation also thanked retired board members Debbie Abbott and Jane Massey, who will be leaving in March of 2012, for their dedication and commitment to the mission of Peninsula Regional Medical Center.


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Latest Article|September 3, 2020|Free
::Making Grown Men Cry Since 1992
2 min read
Every major Internet-based company seems to be trying to the same thing. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL—everybody is in a race to be your online content hub. Each company has their own mail service, their own news center, their own shopping portal … and the result is that internet users accumulate accounts, signing up for the latest and greatest service only to move on once another company releases something better. I talk to friends and acquaintances online, but managing three different online communication accounts just wasn't fun. You can imagine the traditional comically inept infomercial actor, exasperatedly searching for Facebook on my row of browser tabs to use their chat service and accidentally closing other important ones, hunting for the Google Talk icon in my quick launch bar and accidentally deleting the contents of my hard drive …"If only there was a better way!"Guess what, readers—for about seven months, I've been using a desktop-based instant messaging client called Pidgin, which has support for every popular chat program, and some you probably haven't even heard of. Desktop instant messaging clients are a good way to consolidate unwieldy lists of accounts across major service providers into a single location. What finally drove me to house all my accounts using Pidgin was its native support for Facebook chat—instructions are available directly from Facebook, not only for Pidgin but for a host of other chat programs. While this allows you to always be available to converse with friends, it does have a drawback— a friend messaged me once to ask why I was always using Facebook, because always being logged into Facebook Chat through Pidgin makes me appear to always be online. Pidgin is also customizable through extensions, much like popular web browsers Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, allowing users to extend the software's functionality. Pidgin is free and open source, and makes the wild world of online communication a lot simpler.


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Dual world champion James Magnussen has revealed he was given the option of withdrawing from this week's Pan Pacific championships on the Gold Coast due to a "pretty dodgy" back.
But he is still backing himself to claim gold in a world class 100m freestyle Pan Pacs field boasting his London Olympic conqueror Nathan Adrian of the United States.
Magnussen could not guarantee he would be fully fit for the four-day meet where Australia takes on the likes of America, Canada and Japan from Thursday.
However, Magnussen believed a bulging disc complaint would not stop him from repeating his 2013 world title heroics.
Magnussen gained post-London redemption when he held out Americans Jimmy Feigen and Adrian to defend his world title in Barcelona last year.
"Obviously I hated getting beaten at London and the (2013) worlds for me was one of my biggest achievements getting over the top of those two Americans," Magnussen said.
Asked to describe his rivalry with the Americans, Magnussen said: "I barely see them and don't really talk to them.
"But I am a very competitive and determined person, and I like to win and that is my main focus.
"I wouldn't say I have the edge over them but I am quietly confident.
"I have done the job before. I am pretty focused on doing it again."
Magnussen said teaming up with the man who upset him at the 2014 national titles - world No.2-ranked Cameron McEvoy - had also buoyed him for the Pan Pacs showdown.
Magnussen avenged his shock loss to McEvoy by pipping his Australian teammate for Glasgow Commonwealth Games 100m gold despite aggravating his back complaint.
"It takes a bit of pressure off having Cam there with me now," he said.
"It feels like the pair of us are taking on the rest of the field which is kind of cool."
Magnussen said the lower back complaint was "improving day by day" and ruled out surgery.
"It was pretty dodgy when I got back from the Commonwealth Games but we've been working really stringently on it and I'm doing the best I can to be as close to 100 per cent as I can," he said.
"I won't go into too much detail (about scan results) but there are definitely some problems there.
"(But) any chance I get to represent the Australian swim team I feel very strongly about, so pulling out, whilst it was an option, was never something I wanted to consider and something I never allowed myself to think about."
Magnussen will lead an Australian team still buzzing from topping the Glasgow Games pool tally with 57 medals (19 gold, 21 silver, 17 bronze).
But they face a sterner test against a 60-strong US team spearheaded by Olympic great Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Missy Franklin and Katie Ledecky.


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By Doug Fabrizio
Salt Lake City, UT – Dr. Gene Jacobsen recounts his three-and-a-half year experience as a prisoner of war during World War II. Captured at the age of 20 in 1941, he survived the Bataan Death March and imprisonment in Japan and the Phillipines. Jacobsen was one of only sixty-five men of his Army Air Corps squadron to return home. (Repeat)
Read Gene Jacobsen's Poem in its entirety: Voices from the American Military Cemetery at Fort Bonafacio, Manila, in the Philippine Islands
Purchase a CD of this program
Visit one of Salt Lake City's independent booksellers:
Ken Sanders Rare Books
The King's English
Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore
Or shop on-line at Amazon.com. A portion of your purchase benefits KUER.
Voices from the American Military Cemetery at Fort Bonafacio, Manila, in the Philippine Islands
On marble pillars carved in stone
The names of former corpsmen known.
Young they were, valiant and brave,
Assigned too early to an unknown grave
In a station still unknown.
Standing alone in that hallowed place,
Each name read recalls a face,
A catching laugh, a smile, a glow
Of months with them so long ago,
Far from their present resting place.
They are dead, how blessed am I
Standing beneath a tropic sky,
Free from prison pain and care,
Breathing deep freedom's air,
One of the few who didn't die.
As I stood in quiet, I could hear
Their voices speaking load and clear:
You're well, were not, and we won't be
Until you strive to set us free
From the heavy burdens that we bear.
It isn't death that pains us so,
Although we hadn't planned to go
So young, with out our mission through
, The one we were supposed to do
And failed, we all now know.
Why was the country we love so dear
Willing to sacrifice us here,
Abandoned, long before we fell,
To suffer each, his own private hell
When victory could have been so near?
What happened to the planes and tanks
Bombers of the starving Yanks?
Eager to serve the country well,
Instead of experiencing a living hell
Far from home in the form of thanks.
As I stood and read the names inscribed
Of the brave men who fought and died
I felt my anger rise and stir
Through tears that caused the scene to blur
Recalled other names-----those who lied.
Our four-stars general topped the list
Of faces visible through the mist
Joined by exalted President,
Who never shared his intent
Our concerted for those would be missed.
Generals there were and quite a few
Who seemed to know not what to do
And the British Prime Minister, the President's friend,
Who wooed and swayed him to the end
Until his water at home was through.
And so, these restless dead still yearn
For the folks to finally learn
The truth about the Rock and Bataan
Although the years have come and gone
Their complete respect from us to earn.
A group of cowards we were not
As some have said and others thought.
The task assigned was far too great,
For the desperate men a pending fate,
A futile and nobly fought.
Who will take up the cause for these men here?
Courageous and faithful, men with out fear,
Who pled with us to set them free
To join the ranks of you and me
And those at home who hold them dear
When men are called to serve in war,
Weather near toat home or in places far,
Is it too much to ask
Support that's needed for the task
That nation's honor not to mar?
For them no freedom, no honor, no fame.
At home life went on just the same.
Few knew why we had lost the cause.
The nation hardly seemed to pause,
So still only suffer in their shame.
- Gene S. Jacobsen, 1996


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Woman's tweet: 'Found a baby on my lawn, that's new'
From FOX 12, Portland
PORTLAND, Ore. -- A 17-year-old girl is accused of kidnapping a 4-month-old baby in northeast Portland Tuesday.
Officers were initially searching at the Cedar Tree Apartments at 148th Avenue between Burnside and Stark Street after getting the report of the missing child at about 2 a.m. Tuesday.
Police spoke with family members and tried to determine if another family member had the baby or if someone kidnapped the child. They were checking all addresses associated with the family.
At about 7 a.m. a woman -- who doesn't know the family involved -- walked outside of her home and discovered the baby boy underneath a tree in her front yard.
"So. Found a baby on my lawn this morning. That's new," the woman wrote on twitter. "The baby is fine. Cold, but safe."
Officer Kevin Macho responded to a radio call and took custody of the boy at the home on Northeast 139th Avenue, 11 blocks away from the address where the baby went missing.
"It obviously felt good. We didn't know the status of the baby earlier, so it's nice to hold a 4-month-old that's safe," he said.
The teen accused of the kidnapping, Kabriana Harper, is a cousin of the baby's mother and was staying with her for a few days recently.
Officers said the teen took the baby before abandoning him under a tree and then returned to the home where police first contacted her early this morning.
Detectives interviewed her extensively before taking her to the Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Home.
Detectives do not believe anyone else is involved in this case. A motive has not been revealed.
Harper is charged with one count of second-degree kidnapping, a Measure 11 crime.
Paramedics took the child to a Portland hospital for evaluation.
As for the woman who found the baby, she said she's just happy the child is OK.
"Glad the baby's safe, hope he lives a long, productive, drama-free life from now on," the woman later tweeted.


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Quite a simple question, I reckon, however, even quite an extensive search hasn't helped me.
I want to define a recursively defined sequence that starts with defined f[1]
and f[2]
and distinguishes the input like so: f[3k]
, f[3k+1]
, f[3k+2]
. Each of these would have its own expression.
For further clarification, an example:
$$ f(3n) = f(n)+1 $$
$$ f(3n+1) = f(n)+2 $$
$$ f(3n+2) = f(n)+3 $$
How does one go about that? I do know how to write simple recursion formulas on the level of Fibonacci or a factorial, it's only the distinguishing the input part. Also, this should be possible without any if
statements, etc.
Thanks for any help!


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Vaginal Discharge: What's Normal, What's Not
What Is Vaginal Discharge?
Vaginal discharge is fluid that comes from the vagina. You might see this on the toilet paper when you wipe, or in your underwear.
Normal vaginal discharge has several purposes: cleaning and moistening the vagina, and helping to prevent and fight infections. It's normal for the color, texture, and amount of vaginal discharge to change at different times of the month during a girl's menstrual cycle. But some changes in discharge may mean there is a problem.
What Is Normal Vaginal Discharge?
Normal vaginal discharge can be:
- somewhat thin, sticky, and elastic
- thick and gooey
For some girls, it's normal to have a lot of vaginal discharge. They may even need to wear a pantiliner to keep their underwear dry. Other girls may not have much vaginal discharge at all.
Vaginal fluids should be clear, white, or off-white in color.
What Are the Signs of a Problem with Vaginal Discharge?
These signs can mean there's a problem with a girl's discharge:
- a change in odor, especially an unpleasant odor
- a change in color, especially greenish, grayish, or anything looking like pus
- a change in texture, such as foamy or looking like cottage cheese
- vaginal itching, burning, swelling, or redness
- vaginal bleeding or spotting that is not a menstrual period
What Can Cause Changes in Vaginal Discharge?
Infections are the most common cause of unusual vaginal discharge. These infections include:
- yeast infections
- bacterial infections, such as bacterial vaginosis (BV)
- STDs such as gonorrhea
What Should I Do If I Notice a Change in My Vaginal Discharge?
If you think your vaginal discharge has changed, make an appointment with your doctor right away. This is especially important if you've had sex because it could be a sign of an STD. Most causes of vaginal discharge can be treated.


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The distinguished sage, Murray Rothbard, in The Economics of Gun Control, offers a historic example of government regulation for intentional consolidation designed to eliminate the mom and pop neighborhood gunsmith.
"The latest gun control proposals from the Clinton administration provide an instructive, if unwitting, lesson in the economics of government intervention. Until this year, if you wanted to become a federally licensed gun dealer, you only needed to pay $10 a year. But the "Brady Bill" raised the federal license fee to $66 a year a more than 500% increase at one blow. Even this is not enough for Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen, who proposes to raise fees by no less than another tenfold, to $600 a year.
One fascinating aspect of this drastic rise in license fees is that Bentsen actually proclaims and welcomes its effect as a device to cartelize the retail gun industry. Thus, Bentsen, in the non sequitur of the year, complains that there are 284,000 gun dealers in the country, "31 times more gun dealers than there are McDonald's restaurants."
That bastion of self-defense docility, the New York Times in Gun Control as Economic Stimulus, describes the inflow of federal receipts since the selection of Barack Obama to be the head gun grabber. Well, before the Sandy Hook false flag self-justification excuse for banning numerous small arms, the trend to hoard guns and ammo became a growth industry.
"Here's a chart showing millions of dollars of firearms and ammunition excise taxes collected at the federal level over the last decade:
Firearm and ammunition tax revenues skyrocketed for a different reason: These went up because people were simply buying more guns and ammunition, apparently because they feared Barack Obama would curb their access to deadly weapons upon taking office."
In the consistent statist tradition of disarming the public, the haters of the Second Amendment look to curtail sales to individuals. The economics behind the U.S. gun control debate illustrates the trends for sales to government agencies as the future market for the gun industry.
"At a time when the U.S. economy is fragile, it's more difficult to clamp down on an industry that posts annual sales of $12 billion and has been generating new, high-paying, high-skill jobs at an impressive pace. In fact, over the past two years – as U.S. unemployment has surged over eight per cent – the gun industry has created 26,000 new jobs that pay an average of $47,000 a year in salaries and benefits.
Furthermore, rather than suffering through the recession, gun sales have climbed as Americans have become more fearful of police budget cuts, rising crime, general civil unrest and, post-9/11, terrorist threats.
The fact that U.S. government agencies, spurred by new counterterrorism measures, account for 40 per cent of gun industry revenues is also a crucial consideration . . ."
Keepers of the peace have become predators of the Homeland Security society. The neutering of local authority for federal jurisdiction is the hidden result of all the latest legislation intended to unarm the public.
By now, you probably heard the account of Feds Buy Two Billion Rounds of Ammunition, as reported in Breitbart.
"It's not the number of bullets we need to worry about but the number of feds with guns it takes to use those bullets. There are currently more than 70 different federal law enforcement agencies employing over 120,000 officers with arrest and firearms authority . . . That's an increase of nearly 30 percent between 2004 and 2008. If the trends have continued upward at a relatively steady rate, that would put the total number of federal law enforcement officers at somewhere between 135,000 and 145,000. That's a pretty staggering number, especially when you consider that there are only an estimated 765,000 state and local law enforcement officers. That means that about one in seven law enforcement officers in the country works directly for the federal government, not a local jurisdiction."
The operational economics of gun control legislation has the purpose of maintaining a state controlled monopoly for firearms. One such example seen in the bill, known as the NY SAFE Act, included is a ban on any semi-automatic rifles or shotguns with "military-style" features, such as a pistol grip or a folding stock, has the goal of disarming the public. Such draconian methods drive the trade in guns underground. The black market in arms becomes the defiant mart for the new criminalization of self-protection seeking citizens.
The natural response from gun manufacturers, which are in the liberty survival business, is to boycott sales of their products to the very tyrannical government that wants to stamp out constitutional rights. Companies like Olympic Arms, LaRue Tactical, York Arms, Templar Custom and EFI, are cutting off sales to law enforcement agencies within jurisdictions that enact unconstitutional laws and regulations. A more complete list can be found in, Gun Companies Boycotting Law Enforcement In Anti-Gun States.
The federal SWAT shooters follow bureaucratic orders, as they tear down the last vestige of a free people. Curtailing or driving out of business, legitimate firearm manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, is a part of the plan to eliminate resistance to the gun grabbing despotic regime.
Just look how far the anti gun culture politicos have gone since the Clinton era to tax gun sales out of business. Today your very own Inherent Autonomy existence is at stake from state governments as well as the federal tyrant.
Tags: 2nd Amendment


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Change and Continuity in Social Protection in Latin America: Mothers at the Service of the State?
Change and Continuity in Social Protection in Latin America: Mothers at the Service of the State?
This paper has three main objectives. First, to describe the principal elements of new approaches to social policy in Latin America, in order to further understanding of the new forms of social protection that are evolving in the South. Second, to examine and contrast new and older models of poverty relief with specific reference to Latin America; and third, to ask what the implications of these polices and programmes are for those who have been among the most actively engaged in them, and who constitute a good proportion of their beneficiaries, namely low-income women.
Three main arguments are advanced in the paper. The first is that while evolving approaches to social protection in developing countries are routinely described as "neoliberal", this descriptor is too broad to capture the changes in policy approaches that have taken place since the era of stabilization and adjustment. The "second and third waves" of reform have absorbed the language of equality, citizenship and participation, and while the scope of state action and expenditure was sharply reduced in the 1980s, there has been a slow if as yet inadequate recovery since then. Indeed, some policy analysts talk of a new era of welfarism, and of "working towards universalism".
The second argument concerns the way that anti-poverty programmes function. While those developed in the 1990s are to a large extent state financed and managed, they depend for their functioning on refiguring state-society relations in ways that attempt to build on existing, or create new forms of, social control and engagement. In short, for all the talk of "hollowed-out states", social relations and states continue to be of critical importance in securing the welfare of low-income populations, although in ways that are not sufficiently problematized—especially in regard to their gendered implications.
The third and central argument of the paper is that the terms of women's incorporation into welfare systems in Latin America have always been strongly influenced by women's symbolic and social roles as mothers. Currently evolving anti-poverty programmes are in the main, despite some adaptations to modern conceptions of citizenship, still premised on a gendered construction of social need and indeed have the effect of re-traditionalizing gendered roles and responsibilities. Thus the state is actively involved, through these programmes, in the structuring of asymmetrical and unequal gender relations, and this, it is argued, has long-term consequences for the satisfaction of social need.
The discussion is organized into two main parts: the first is concerned with Latin American social policy provision, before and after the structural reforms. It examines the ways in which women's access to social rights was historically conditioned by their status as wives and mothers, and their position within the labour market as low-paid, unorganized and informalized workers. It then proceeds to identify the key elements of the New Social Policy and describes the newer aspects of poverty relief post-1985.
Part 2 opens with a discussion of the gender and poverty debate, and goes on to examine two contrasting Latin American poverty relief programmes, Progresa/Oportunidades in Mexico and the Comedores Populares in Peru, in an attempt to identify the different ways in which gender is, and has been, implicated in the design and management of poverty relief. These two cases are selected as they represent earlier and current approaches to poverty relief. Progresa/Oportunidades is generally taken as a model case for the new cash transfer anti-poverty programmes being developed in Latin America and has been widely emulated; the Comedores Populares evolved from a grassroots food distribution programme, to become an important safety net for the urban poor.


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The seven Krttika
In the Hindu mythology, it is said that the stars of the Big Dipper were the seven sages called Rishis. They were happily married to seven sisters named Krttika. They originally lived all together in the northern sky.After some problems, the seven
Rishis divorced their wives. Arundhati was the only one that remained with her
husband as the star Alcor. The other six Krttika went away to become the Pleiades.


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The PDF-1 pays tribute to the Mastro Parametric Filter
Download Example 1 Height at 50%, Freq at 50%, Bandwidth at Fat, Switched to Dirty. Fano JM6 through Fender '63 Reissue Vibroverb. | |
Download Example 2 Clean Boost, Freq at 2 o'clock, Height at Maximum, Bandwidth at Thin. Fender Jaguar with Seymour Duncan Hot Jaguar pickups through Fender Pro Jr. |
In the years since the MPF first hit music store shelves, 6-string adventurers, including Alex Lifeson and Josh Homme, have used the Maestro to sculpt their tones. Now, Stone Deaf FX of Manchester, England, has created a sturdier and more versatile evolution of the Maestro circuit. Despite its formidable-sounding moniker, the Stone Deaf PDF-1 Parametric Distortion Filter proves to be a pedal of myriad applications beyond heavy and blazing riff-rock. Like its inspiration, the PDF-1 is not the most out-there fuzz or fattest distortion. But it gives you access to sounds that most run-of-the-mill pedals can't deliver.
English Kraftwerk
Though we're in a Golden Age for stompboxes, a lot of great pedals suffer from looking and feeling like everything else behind the counter. Not the Stone Deaf PDF-1. The custom- machined aluminum casing, top-notch pots and switches, and stylishly engraved 3-ply plastic control panel are simultaneously reminiscent of an Apollo capsule control panel and the dash of a late '60s BMW—elegant, easy to navigate, and perceptibly well made. If you love the way a good switch feels, you'll dig tinkering with the PDF-1.
For all the obvious quality, the PDF-1 is an exceptionally light pedal. The 9-volt battery is brilliantly stashed on the side of the enclosure in a sliding access compartment that will have you setting records for fast, onstage battery changes. It's a very cool-looking pedal too, with a compact but distinctive '70s-inspired elevated profile that makes it easy to find on a crowded pedalboard.
In terms of operation, the controls are simple, if not completely intuitive at first. The Height knob (each of the curious control names are identical to those on the Maestro MPF that inspired the PDF-1) drops or boosts a given frequency by up to 20 dB. The Freq knob selects the frequency between 65 Hz and 3 kHz that you want to boost or cut. The 5-position Bandwidth switch moves from Thin to Fat settings and reduces or widens the signal's bandwidth as a whole. Then there's the Clean/Dirty switch, which effectively changes the Stone Deaf from a boost/parametric EQ to a distortion/parametric EQ unit.
If your amp and guitar were feeling like a cramped cottage,
the Stone Deaf's clean boost function is like adding
a sunroom on the back.
the Stone Deaf's clean boost function is like adding
a sunroom on the back.
Shape Shifter
If the Stone Deaf were only a boost pedal, it would still be an impressive and useful addition to a pedalboard. And my first experiments with the PDF-1, in the context of a pretty boisterous band jam, involved heavy use of the remarkably transparent clean circuit. Running the pedal after a TS-9 Tube Screamer and a Pro Co Rat, and into a blackface Fender Tremolux, a Music Man HD212, and a Fender Vibroverb demonstrated not only how much character this pedal can lend to your signal on its own, but how much it can help you tailor otherwise ordinary overdrive and distortion signals.
With the Stone Deaf set to clean, the Height to approximately +5 dB, the bandwidth to Fat, and the frequency to about 3 o'clock, the signal from both a toaster pickup-equipped Rickenbacker 330 and an E-series Fender Stratocaster took on a wide, lively, full-spectrum character. The tones displayed a sort of natural compression more akin to the output of an outboard studio compressor than a comp pedal—a pretty delicious addition to an already lovely single-coil and 6L6 tone recipe.
Sweeping the Frequency knob up to maximum gave individual notes and arpeggios a bright, but not-quite-spiky presence—especially nice for bridge pickup work—that also left a lot of room for shaping sound with a guitar's volume or tone knob. If your amp and guitar were feeling like a cramped canyon cottage, the Stone Deaf's clean boost function is a little like adding a sunroom on the back—it creates a lot of bright, airy space. It can also take the sound of a very aggressive distortion like the Rat and add even a touch more girth or snarling focus, depending on where you set the Bandwidth and Frequency knobs.
The dirty circuit is where a lot of rock players will live with this pedal. It's certainly not a high-gain distortion path, nor does it crank out the most hornet-buzzing fuzz. But switch the Bandwidth all the way to fat and the Height and Frequency knobs all the way clockwise, and a humbucker-equipped Les Paul will turn into a throaty, roaring monster that makes chords thick and wooly, and leads simultaneously warm, rotund, and defined. It's no wonder that Josh Homme has taken to this pedal as well its inspiration.
The Dirty switch isn't just about fat and furry stoner-rock tones. Moving the Frequency knob to 3 o'clock, the Height all the way clockwise, and Bandwidth to any of the three thinnest settings produced a cool sound in between a cocked wah and an envelope filter, and—depending on the input from your guitar or additional pedals—a fuzz that ranged from quacky and prickly to muscular and super-focused in the high-mid zone. Try this setting with some P-90s and a cranked Champ or Pro Junior, and you're neck-deep in Texas boogie mud.
The Verdict
Where simpler or more radical distortion circuits transform your tone entirely, the Stone Deaf PDF-1 is really best at lending more color and control to your existing rig. And if you're more-or-less content with sounds you get, but just need a little more breathing room, command over equalization, or a stretch of sonic two lane where you can open up the throttle a little, this Stone Deaf is an elegant and very capable tool.
Buy if...
you want to expand your range of color and command with a tried-and-trusted rig.
Skip if...
you're looking for over-the-top or high-gain distortion and fuzz.
Street $225 - Stone Deaf FX - stonedeaffx.com |


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Obama's 3 a.m. MomentBy Nancy Morgan February 7, 2011One of the issues raised in the run-up to our last presidential election was the question "Which candidate is best qualified to handle a '3 a.m. moment'?" America now has a partial answer. It isn't President Obama. Last Friday was Day 4 of the ongoing protests in Egypt , where tens of thousands Egyptians took to the streets to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. As the situation reached a flash point, with a mounting death toll and Egyptian tanks in the streets of Cairo, President Obama maintained his silence. Well, not quite. He did Twitter, by proxy. Around noon Friday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a 22 word statement on Twitter: "Very concerned about violence in Egypt - government must respect the rights of the Egyptian people & turn on social networking and internet." The White House also informed the media that Obama had received a 40 minute briefing on the situation. Phew! After the U.S. markets tanked Friday, a full 4 days after the beginning of the Egyptian crisis, Obama finally addressed the nation. As usual, our president first absolved himself of any blame, stating that if only Egypt had instituted the reforms Obama had been suggesting for the last 2 years, the crisis could have been averted. He then went on to make a bold statement about human rights, "...and the US will stand up for them - everywhere." Period. By Saturday, the uprising in Egypt had spread to other countries, with waves of Arab protests in Tunisia , Jordan and Yemen . Saturday night, Obama partied. "The Washington A-List was out in force Saturday night at the farewell party for senior adviser David Axelrod, with a roster of guests featuring Cabinet secretaries, big shot journos and Obama." On Sunday, with the protests turning into a conflagration, the only word from the White House was that Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, was heading to Haiti to "mediate the political crisis." That's right, Haiti . Meanwhile, the only information available to Americans comes from talking heads and the few journalists not hung-over from Saturday's rollicking good time at the White House. The only "official" information so far from the White House was Joe Biden's statement on Day 3 of the protests. Joe said that President Hosni Mubarak should not step down. He then proceeded to downplay the protests spreading across the Mid East as generally unconnected. The world is left wondering what position America , the world's former superpower, will take. The only stance our administration has taken to date is a generic plea for an end to the violence and the oft-repeated call for human rights. Meanwhile, the world teeters on the brink as a global�crisis with profound geopolitical implications for the U.S. continues to unfold. Obama's 3 a.m. moment has come. And gone. Obama was noticeably AWOL. America is now officially bereft of leadership, at least until the latest polls come in.
Nancy Morgan is a columnist and news editor for RightBias.com |


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The Amygdaloids, a band of New York University scientists, launches its latest EP, "All in Our Minds," with a performance at the Bowery Electric (327 Bowery at 2nd Street) on Friday, Jan. 27 at 7 p.m.
Admission (21 and older) is $7. For more information, call 212.228.0228. Subways: 6 (Bleecker Street); 6 (2nd Avenue). Facebook Event page: www.facebook.com/events/163579560415063/.
The band is led by NYU neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, director of NYU's Emotional Brain Institute. One of the group's objectives is to increase awareness of mental health issues through promotion of research via music. It has previously released "Heavy Mental" and "Theory of My Mind." LeDoux's published works include The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life and Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are.
"All in Our Minds" includes five tracks: "My Mind's Eye," "Map of Your Mind," "I Got a Mind to Tell You," "Reminds Me of You," and "Out of Sight, Out of Mind". The EP was produced by Jeff Peretz, an instructor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and recorded at Head Gear, located in Williamsburg Brooklyn, and the James L. Dolan Music Recording Studio at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
The Jan. 27 performance will include LeDoux (guitar and vocals) and Peretz (lead guitar, bass), along with the following members of the Amygdaloids: Amanda Thorope (bass and vocals); former NYU post-doctoral fellow Daniela Schiller (drums), an assistant professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine; and Tamas Madarasz (cello), a graduate student in NYU's Center for Neural Science.


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Exultation of the Cross at Black Madonna
by Steve Ray on September 14, 2011
Janet and I are driving our rental car (and running) around Poland in anticipation of our group arriving tomorrow. Today we had Mass of the Exultation of the Cross with the bishop of Czestochowa in front of the Icon of the Black Madonna which they say was painted by St. Luke on a table in Nazareth made by Jesus. JP II visited here four times when pope.
To learn more click HERE
We pick up our group tomorrow and have Mass at St. Stanislaw Koska where Polish hero and martyr Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko is buried. He was the hero of Solidarity and was beatified in June 2010.
Starting tomorrow I will be uploading daily videos of our pilgrimage on my blog.


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Ten reasons to be a research software engineer
Ten reasons to be a research software engineer
By Chris Cannam, Dirk Gorissen, James Hetherington, Cass Johnston, Simon Hettrick and Mark Woodbridge.
Anthony Finkelstein wrote a great post about the benefits of being a software engineer: you can call yourself an engineer without getting your hands dirty, and you can wear jeans and a T-shirt to work (if you feel like being smart). All good points, but it got us thinking, whilst it may be good to be a software engineer, it's even better to be a research software engineer. And here's why.
(And if you're interested in this post, you should attend our workshop for research software engineers on 11 September in Oxford.)
1. Right at the cutting edge of science
You can read books and watch documentaries about research, but that's old news. If you really want to know what's going on, you have to work with the researchers themselves.
Research software engineers work right at the frontiers of science: they are the people who researchers work with in order to turn theories into results. And unlike researchers, Research Software Engineers don't have to pay for this privilege by writing papers.
2. Travel the world
Fancy a trip to Singapore, Rio, Hawaii, LA, Hong Kong, or Shanghai? Become a research software engineer.
We're not saying that you'll be jet setting every other day, but in how many jobs do you get to fly around the world to visit collaborating universities, or present work at international conferences? Not many! By sitting on the line between software development and research, research software engineers benefit from similar travel as their researcher colleagues.
3. Use the tools and languages that are best suited to the job
There's a lot of freedom in research software development. And rightfully so, because restrictions tend to stifle creativity, and intelligent solutions are creative.
Researchers want results, so research software engineers are often given complete flexibility in their approach to a problem. Novelty and creativity are encouraged, which means there's rarely a restriction on the tools you can use.
4. Open to open source
The freedom in choosing tools extends to the use of open source. Research is completely amenable to the use of open-source software.
It's not just about the use of open-source software: it's also about the freedom to open source the code that you create. It benefits the whole community when researchers share their work, and this applies equally to software. Research software engineers are far more likely to be active members of the open-source community, and meet far fewer restrictions on being allowed to open source their own software.
5. Wall-to-wall bright people
Universities and research establishments in general are interesting places to work. They are populated by people who are fascinated by the world around them. Research software engineers - who share this passion - find a happy working environment in research institutions.
6. Flexibility
Some people get so engrossed in a solving a problem that working hours is not a term that applies to them. Many research software engineers find themselves coding way into the night in an attempt to get something completed, not because they are being pressurised to do so, but because they enjoy the reward of doing something that others have not been able to do.
Research software engineers get a lot of flexibility in their working environment. Again, it's about results. If you produce the software researchers need, you will receive a lot of flexibility over the hours you work.
7. Why work in only one discipline?
The unique combination of understanding research and software engineering makes research software engineers extremely useful in all disciplines. In fact, many work simultaneously on different projects in different disciplines. Working with such a broad range of subject areas and people is both stimulating and rewarding.
8. Important work
Software engineers might work as part of a large team working on a small part of a software package. Research software engineers will often be responsible for an entire software package - or a large part of it. Such responsibility can be daunting, especially when the results produced by your software could be the foundation of a new research field, but it is also incredible rewarding.
The knowledge that your work could have a big impact is one of the main attractions of being a research software engineer.
9. Collaboration
Of course there is competition within research, but if your hear about someone doing interesting work, you can usually start a conversation with them and often a collaboration. This gives you access to expertise to help improve your software (designers, usability experts, hardware engineers) as well as access to resources from supercomputers to datasets that just wouldn't be shared in industry.
10. Choose your own path
Research software engineers might not yet have a career path in research, but their importance is certainly recognised by the researchers who they work with. The combined benefits of using the tools you want, the ability to swap between interesting fields and being able to make a significant impact with your work means that research software engineers can carve out their own path through research.
Now all we need to do, is make sure that this important role is recognised and rewarded with proper contracts and adequate remuneration.


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Associate Producer of Polanski Documentary Spams This Blog With Multiple Anonymous Comments Attacking Me (UPDATED With More Evidence) (UPDATED With Admission and Apology)
[UPDATE 10-4-09 at 9:53 p.m.: Ms. Sullivan has identified herself as the author of the post and apologized personally to me. She stresses that she was writing in a private capacity — without the knowledge of her former production team. She has also apologized to the producers for any embarrassment or misunderstanding caused. I ask my commenters to refrain from posting her picture, insulting her, or other similar behavior. — Patterico]
That's certainly what the evidence suggests to me. Looks like I touched a nerve, huh?
Tonight the following comment started to appear on every single post I have written about Roman Polanski. The commenter goes by the name of "kitty kat." I will bold the more insulting and/or inaccurate passages, to make sure you don't lose them in all the illiterate ranting and raving:
Dear Mr. Frey
Deputy District DA in Los Angeles? Where do you find the free time…to blog about Polanski… or IS this little recreation…. all part of the job? Big Election year coming up, right?
Shouldn't you be making sure justice is served through a just system? Justice for the victim and Polanski cannot be won under a corrupt justice system then and now.
I believe, two kinds of people when it comes to crime and punishment. There are those who understand that we are a nation of laws, and that our system does not serve vengeance but justice. And those who are like something out of the Old Testament, eye for an eye righteous, lying, arrogant fumers. I like to divide these groups into educated and ignorant
David Wells did not lie in the documentary. The interview was done years ago according to the director. He signed a release. The film premiered in 2008 worldwide. No word from Wells on his big lie until now? Me thinks Cooley is worried he will not get elected again. Clearly the LAJD has no respect for its own system but as we know corruption breeds corruption. The fact that the majority of the PRESS is IGNORING a corrupt judge in 1977 and now a corrupt DA speaks volumes. The question is how much are you paying David Wells or at least tell us what he's getting of it or were threats involved?
RE: Probation Transcripts: So many case facts have been spinned by your pal Marcia Clark, I cannot even begin to list them all. However the documentary: Roman Polanski: Wanted & Desired interviews MAJOR participants from the case and witnesses to Rittenband's judicial misconduct who outline this heinous conduct in the film. How interesting that the PRESS also FAILS to mention that Rittenband asked a news reporter (as well as David Wells ) "What he should do with Polanski?" Ethics Violation…big time.
Also, please note that David Wells provided way too many SPECIFIC details. Lying? I don't think so…. Let's see if his current statement will hold up under a polygraph test, shall we?
Also, how interesting that the prosecutor Roger Gunson, says in the film ( paraphrase ) " had he been in Polanski's shoes, he would have fled as well." Yes, the highly respected MORMON PROSECUTOR!!!!. The Judicial misconduct was indeed….that bad…. Oh and did I mention the 2 PRETEND hearings that Rittenband concocted? The list of misconduct and ethics violations goes on and on and on.
How interesting that the PRESS neglects to mention… that Rittenband was removed from the case.
The LAJD says its been trying to get Polanski for 30 years. When questioned, they immediately scramble to produce a one page press release which they post on their website with some dates and blurbs over the years…. Anybody can write a press release. Let's see the original papers.
Seems evident that a corrupt justice department and a biased sensationalist News Media walk hand in hand these days… After all, an election year is coming up! Is it not?
No wonder Polanski fled. Anyone in their right mind would and should.
The question is… how can you can you condemn his corruption when you cannot condemn your own. What type of justice is corruption, dishonesty and finally hypocrisy ? It is he who thinks they are above the law, not Mr. Polanski.
I generally don't allow comments that attack me professionally based on what I blog, and I deleted several iterations of the exact comment, and banned the user. But the comments kept appearing in moderation. (Since I'm posting on this now, I have decided to approve a handful of them. You can read the comment here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. That's eight instances of the same comment — and I deleted at least as many instances of the same comment, if not more.)
The fervor with which this person spammed each and every comment thread with this comment led me to wonder whether "kitty kat" might not have some personal stake in all this. So I decided to investigate . . . and the evidence I uncovered points to the conclusion that she is Michelle Sullivan, an associate producer of the Polanski documentary.
Here is a screenshot from my control panel, showing kitty kat's IP address and e-mail:
[I am removing the screenshot with Ms. Sullivan's IP address, given that she has admitted posting the comments. I will not remove the other screenshots that show her e-mail, since her e-mail address is already available online — but I ask readers not to send Ms. Sullivan any abusive e-mails. — P]
If you plug that e-mail address into Google you get this page, which associated the e-mail address with one Michelle Sullivan of Perpetual Motion Films:
Please e-mail me at firstname.lastname@example.com
Many thanks for any thoughts in advance,
Michelle Sullivan
Perpetual Motion Films
Los Angeles, CA
And a Google search for "Perpetual Motion Films" "Michelle Sullivan" Polanski yields one result and one result only: Ms. Sullivan's LinkedIn profile, where we can see that she was an associate producer of the Polanski documentary "Wanted and Desired":
Why, hello, "kitty kat"!
We need not rely on a single web page to tie in the above e-mail address to Ms. Sullivan. Her LinkedIn page refers to a Website called "Violet Planet."
That site turns out to be a Blogspot-hosted blog with predictably liberal opinions such as this anti-Bush screed. Plugging the e-mail address by itself into Google reveals other connections to Ms. Sullivan, such as this message at a Greta Garbo fan site:
Sure enough, Ms. Sullivan's imdb.com lists among her credits her stint as Greta Garbo, and her work on the Polanski documentary.
[UPDATE: I forgot this page, which also associates kitty kat's e-mail with the VioletPlanet site. This has some good anti-Bush and anti-PUMA screeching.]
It's perfectly clear that the e-mail address used by "kitty kat" is the e-mail associated with an associate producer of the Polanski documentary. If the commenter isn't Ms. Sullivan, then it's a very clever person who knows Ms. Sullivan and is trying to frame her as having left the comment.
Let's go with the common-sense conclusion: "kitty kat" is Michelle Sullivan, associate producer of the Polanski documentary.
Based on that assumption, I have these responses for Ms. Sullivan:
- No, I have not done any of the Polanski-related blog posts while on the job. While I am a Deputy District Attorney, I blog on my own time and do not speak for my office on this blog.
I do not appreciate your unfounded insinuation that I have blogged on these issues on County time.
- No, I am not writing these posts because I want to get Steve Cooley re-elected. I am writing these posts because I want to contribute to the public's knowledge of the facts surrounding the Polanski controversy. The documentary that you worked on both added to and distorted the body of knowledge available about the controversy. For example, the documentary was (in my opinion) not clear about the nature of what Polanski actually did, as revealed by the victim's grand jury testimony. Nor was it clear about the fact that Polanski was not promised anything in his plea deal other than a) dismissal of all charges but the statutory rape charge, and b) that he would be sentenced by the judge after the judge heard counsel's argument and read the probation report.
I do not appreciate your unfounded insinuations that I am writing these posts for a base political purpose.
- I paid David Wells nothing, despite your suggestions that I did. I did not threaten David Wells, despite your suggestions that I did ("The question is how much are you paying David Wells . . . or were threats involved?"). I do not know David Wells and have never spoken to him in my life.
I do not appreciate your unfounded insinuation that I bribed David Wells.
- I do not know Marcia Clark. I have never met or corresponded with her. Contrary to your claim, she is not my "pal."
- No, ma'am, I am not corrupt, despite your suggestion to the contrary ("how can you can you condemn his corruption when you cannot condemn your own").
I do not appreciate your unfounded insinuation that I am corrupt.
As an associate producer of the documentary about Roman Polanski, you do not cover yourself in glory by coming on my blog and spamming a dozen identical anonymous comments that baselessly insinuate that I have a) bribed a witness on this case; b) blogged this issue on County time; c) written these posts to improve Mr. Cooley's re-election chances; or d) engaged in "corrupt" behavior.
A decent person would apologize to me for all these baseless accusations.
Whether you will, I have no idea.
P.S. If you're going to come on my blog and criticize me by name, I'd have a lot more respect for you if you used your own real name. Lobbing anonymous insults is kind of chickenshit, in my book.
UPDATE: More evidence that "kitty kat" is Sullivan here. Namely, "kitty kat" spammed the comment at The Daily Beast as well — and then scrubbed it after I reported that evidence indicated "kitty kat" was Michelle Sullivan.
UPDATE x2: See the top of the post for an update with Ms. Sullivan's admission and apology.


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Speculation was rampant regarding who would replace David Letterman on the "Late Show" after the veteran host announced his retirement on April 3. One week later CBS revealed Comedy Central star Stephen Colbert will be taking over Letterman's duties when he exits sometime in 2015.
According to Neil Patrick Harris, Colbert wasn't the only TV comedy star being considered for the gig.
Harris revealed to Howard Stern on his SiriusXM radio show Wednesday that CBS chairman Leslie Moonves had pitched the job to him, but the "How I Met Your Mother" star turned it down, worried he would grow bored in the role.
"I think I would get bored of the repetition fast, and the structure of it is so set that I don't have any interest in doing monologue, commercial, sketch, guest, guest, musical act, goodnight," said Harris, who told Stern the idea was pitched over sushi.
"I was surprised that he pitched me that idea, and I sort of — I sat for a minute with it ... and told him the things that concerned me about the longevity in that kind of gig," said Harris, 40, whose nine-season stint on "How I Met Your Mother" ended with the series finale in March.
While Harris is currently busy performing on Broadway in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," the notion of hosting a weekly, rather than nightly, televised variety show holds appeal.
"I think if it is weekly and people really want to see it and you trust that there's a lot of really great (expletive) on there, then you are going to get the guests to want to come on," he told Stern. "You'd have more time to prep for stuff, you could do pre-taped stuff that would be really exciting, you could flesh it out a bit more."
U.S. & World
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


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No, the service hasn't been intentionally down recently. Possibly the nano was posted to some channel not watched (The 100+ channels in Atlantean) or it was posted while the engine was rebooting for maintenance. Typically the engine misses 15 minutes of posts a day. Not perfect, just doing its best.Originally Posted by Zargg
Btw, there's an ID Calling of Thor detected today!


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On the eve of President Obama announcing his gun control agenda, based on Vice President Joe Biden's task force recommendations, the National Rifle Association needed to go big: to remind Americans that the organization protects their gun rights, and to remind politicians that they're a smart and formidable political force they'd be unwise to cross.
Instead, they showed us the truth: They're part of the vast and increasingly incompetent right-wing conspiracy that's sacrificed its own effectiveness for the pleasure of hating Democrats generally and our first black president in particular.
You've either seen or read about the ad: A narrator intones, "Are the president's kids more important than yours?" (Huh? you might say.) "Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he's just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security."
Of course, the NRA ignores the common-sense answer to its own question: Every president's child is protected by armed guards. They're called the Secret Service. Outside of the fever swamps of anti-Obama hatred, no one could possibly have a problem with that, let alone call it hypocrisy.
Just the way Fox News' insularity and reality denial has been a form of media and political malpractice, harming its viewers by shielding them from the Obama victory to come in 2012, the NRA has disabled itself by wallowing in anti-Obama hatred and paranoia. On the eve of the president's big stand, when they most needed to show their supposedly formidable political muscle, instead they showed that they're completely tone-deaf and politically silly. That's because they've been marinating in the bile of Obama's enemies, where the president's modest moves on guns, in the wake of the Newtown massacre, are a trigger to call for his impeachment – thanks, Ed Meese, Mr. Iran-Contra! – or worse.
And on that fringe, of course, everyone knows the president is just a big fat elitist hypocrite. Over on that fringe, Sasha and Malia Obama don't elicit feelings of tenderness and protectiveness like they do in the rest of the country. They elicit feelings of contempt, as the children of "elitist hypocrites," if they provoke any feelings at all.
In the real world, we know that our first black president has faced more assassination threats than any president in history, and that the Secret Service has a particularly tough job protecting him and his family. In the NRA's world, wingnuts pray for his death with Psalm 109, which asks God, "may his children be fatherless and his wife a widow" and "may no one … take pity on his fatherless children.)
And no, I'm not quoting some lone NewsMax commenter or a Breitbart blogger's tweet: The verse has been popular among right-wing ministers and politicians since Obama's inauguration. It's spawned bumper stickers. Almost exactly a year ago, Kansas' Republican House Speaker Mike O'Neal was emailing it around to his political allies. "At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!" O'Neal refused to apologize. Then he apologized. Then he retired. Wayne LaPierre might want to look to O'Neal for inspiration.
To be fair, maybe the NRA is simply saying that every child in America should be protected by an armed guard, like Sasha and Malia Obama are. That would be consistent with LaPierre's creepy maxim: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." (More to the point: That would sell a hell of a lot of guns, the NRA's real goal.) In reality, though, the ad springs from a reflexive belief that most Americans share LaPierre's contempt for the president.
We don't, Wayne. We just reelected him. He's the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to get more than 50 percent of the vote twice. Your hatred is blurring your vision and hurting your political aim. That's bad for the NRA but it's good for the rest of us.